VirtualDub Mingw Porting Project	The records of my struggles
These are what you will need in order to duplicate my work on this project Contact me with comments or questions on this or any other of my projects. Please be sure to include the project name in subject line. Anti spam in address please be sure to read it before sending. I can also be reached Here in general	This is where I will document my work. I am working primarily in Win2k though I am also testing in Reactos 0.3.3 (0.3.4 install bug unresolved on my system) All directions assume Win2k/Xp I won't swear to vista though I spend plenty of time swearing at it. First let me state for the record that I am not a C / C++ Programmer. My personal opinion of C / C++ is low at best. However just because I don't like something does not make it useless. There is a great deal of good in any tool properly used for what it is good at. I prefer Assembly, Pascal or Basic (NON VB) in a pinch. however almost all specs I can find are written in what amounts to C header code and the examples I can find are invariably in C as well leading to this series of projects to learn how C / /C++ works from the build environment on up. Makefiles and Configure are a great big jumble of gibberish to me. One of the main aims of these projects is to learn how to due projects under Cygwin / Mingw so that I can compile projects using all free software so the resulting software is also free. I will also attempt to translate the manuals and files I find so that those who don't speak or think in C / C++ can make use of all that knowledge which is hidden behind assumption of learning.
Needed stuff: In progress. Vdub source code Mingw Msys Cygwin	First attempt at setting up Mingw. My first step is to download Virtualdub 1.7.8 sourcecode. My second is to grab Mingw and install it. - I'm skipping steps for a reason here. My third is to grab Msys and install it. A little more complicated but not much. Now is the point where I look all around for directions. Find some, try them, find that Mingw does not have an autotools environment. Be Very frustrated, Go play urban terror for an hour against the bots. Happier now.
	First attempt at setting up Cygwin. The new first thing I do is grab cygwin. - Links over at left. LOTS of downloading, Takes about ten wins at solitaire & spider. Install Cygwin. - Takes about three more. Look somewhere on your desktop for a cygwin shortcut, found it? Great, now DON'T double click on it. Instead go to your start menu and look around until you find the shortcut for explorer, NOT IE just plain old windows explorer. Should be at Start:Programs:Accessories though it may also under System tools. Anyway once you find it Right click on it which opens a context menu and click on copy. Now go to an open section on the desktop beside the cygwin shortcut then right click which gives you another menu and choose copy. This gives you a shortcut to explorer on your desktop. Now you right click on Cygwin and choose properties. This opens a properties window, drag it out of the way so you can the explorer shortcut again. Now Right click on the explorer which brings up a context menu again and choose properties again. You will see an option for the command line, make it read like the following. EXPLORER.EXE /e, /n, "C:\Cygwin" Now what you need to do make sure that the path to cygwin in the explorer shortcut matches the one inthe cygwin shortcut. Click OK on the explorer shortcut and CANCEL on the cygwin shortcut. Make sure the explorer shortcut contains only the path and not the  cygwin.bat on the end. Double click on the explorer shortcut, This opens an explorer window centered on the cygwin directory. On the left is the directory tree, on the right the contents of the highlighted directory on the left. Double click on the titlebar to make this window full screen. In the tight hand pane you will see cygwin.bat Double click on it. If you watch closely you will see a directory named HOME appear. In it you will find another directory . This is where you will be working. Copy the Virtualdub sourcecode package & buildtools you downloaded to the directory under home. Once there you will need to extract them in place. If you need help with how to do this go lookup 7-zip or winrar at www.google.com and do some in depth reading. Once you extract the VDub archive you will have a directory labeled src, rename this to VDub178 (No spaces) and after making sure that explorer is set to show extensions we are ready to begin. (For more helpful windows tips try looking at annoyances.org for how to set these and many more things.)